Eternity, Drag
by LittleMissBones
Summary: For Laura, the timer was a choice. For Bill, the timer was an order. Yet for both of them, it's right. Bill/Laura, eventually M-rated.


Laura's mother allows her to get the timer on her 16th birthday, acquiescing to her daughter's complaints that 'all her friends were getting one', and agreeing with her more logical reasoning that if she knows when she is going to meet her soul mate, it would help her be more careful when it came to relationships.

(Judith thinks the whole idea of a 'soul mate timer' is a sign the influx of technology is turning society into one craving self-gratification and little else, but it was the only gift Laura wants, so she concedes.)

Laura, for her part, bounces along excitedly in the passenger seat as her mother drives her to the local clinic, wondering how long will it be until she meets her soul mate and what they will look like, what will they be. She does have a certain "type" of person, someone who can use their brain but also keeps up with the times with regards to culture and fashion, and she just _knows_ they will be in love from the moment they meet to the moment they die.

(Later in life, Laura thinks she would like to do nothing more than smack that young woman upside the head and tell her to float back down to solid ground.)

She continues to squirm excitedly, even after they strap down and numb her arm; squirms through the funny, pricking pressure as the nurse and doctor insert the timer into the skin of her forearm, coos over excitedly as the nurse preps it for activation. The doctor smiles, gives her the starter, asks her if she's ready to know when she'll meet the person she'll love her whole life. She nods, eagerly grasps it, and activates the timer.

The Doctor and Nurse manage to control their reactions, but the tension in their faces tells Laura that something is different.

_35y 4m 3w 6d 9h 21mn 57s _is the time she reads when she glances down.

35y.

35y.

It's going to be 35 years until she meets her soul mate?

What the frak is she going to do in the meantime? Buy a cat?

So Laura sits grumpily in the car on the way home, hearing her mother assure her that the technology in the future will be more advanced technology and be able to remove the timer; that it _was_ what she asked for and now she's going to have to learn how to deal with consequences of acting on whims and peer pressure.

For the next 35 years, Laura learns the last lesson very, very well.

* * *

><p>For Bill, the timer isn't exactly "optional".<p>

The company that created them was looking for experimental test subjects before making the move to mainstream consumers, had made (what was considered) a fantastic pitch to the military, which had ordered several soldiers to report to a generic testing facility and receive their timers. They did have sound reasoning, partially, if someone's soul mate was in the military, the army could get them into spousal housing faster and start saving money lost during the Cylon War.

The testing had been…uncomfortable, to say the least, partially because of the ineffectiveness of the anaesthesia they were using to numb his arm, partially because Bill didn't want to receive the timer, but being the good soldier he was he reported anyways and goes through with it.

The timer had been blank, the doctor and nurse and testers assure him that it really was nothing to worry about, this was experimental, after all, and that just meant his soul mate simply hadn't gotten one, and they were most likely in the civilian population.

(It also means his timer could be faulty, but nobody had really brings that up.)

So Bill's stuck with either a faulty or un-activated timer, kind of the laughingstock of his squadron until one day Reynolds meets another soldier who also has an unactivated timer.

"It's just…weird, I suppose," Skater said as she sits next to Bill in the mess hall, "It's like having dessert put right in front of you, then being told you have to wait until everyone else has taken a piece and you're left with the crumbs. We just have to sit and wait until they find a way to get the frakking things off."

Skater's wrong, of course – hers activates a week and a half later at _2m 3w 18d 6h 51mn 43s_, and she does meet the love of her life at the designated time (a shy barista named Francesca who has a pierced eyebrow and more tattoos than the most burly freighter captain), and Bill's left to wonder whether he's cursed or a terrible person or just really frakking stupid.


End file.
